The Part-Time Teachers' Union has received complaints that full time faculty members have been withholding courses from availability for assignment to non-probationary part-time faculty. The allegation is:
Full time faculty members allocate courses to themselves to cover their regular full-time load as part of the normal scheduling process. All remaining courses are then supposed to be available to offer to non-probationary part-time faculty, as part of the college's responsibility to make every effort to provide them with a workload that is comparable to their normal load. It has been alleged to us that full time faculty, particularly those who play a role in assigning courses to part-time faculty, have been identifying courses they would like to teach as overload, and keeping those courses out of the pool available for assignment to non-probationary part-time faculty. Then, after assignments have been made to non-probationary part-time faculty, they have been claiming the withheld courses as voluntary overload. In at least several cases, non-probationary PT faculty have not received course assignments up to their normal load as a result of this practice.
This practice would be a violation of the part-time contract.
The union is encouraging all non-probationary members to examine the attached spreadsheet and look for courses that you would have been eligible to teach. If you ended up teaching less than your normal load in either the Fall of 2011 or the Spring of 2012, and if one or more courses that you are eligible to teach appears on the spreadsheet, then we are asking that you contact the union.
Fall 2011: 120 courses assigned to FT faculty as voluntary overload.
Spring 2012: 117 courses assigned to FT faculty as voluntary overload.